Aircraft carriers have long been considered the world’s most powerful and deadliest weapons systems only a nuclear warhead can destroy, again if it is lucky enough to cut through the flattop’s powerful missile defenses.
No more. You no longer need to go around the carrier’s air defenses or launch missile and torpedo attacks. All you need to do is cut the onboard planes’ communications with the mother ship and jam their “friend or foe” electronic identification system.
Russian knowhow in this tricky field of electronic warfare is really second to none and the upcoming MAKS-2015 airspace expo will showcase the country’s latest systems of electronic jamming.
The history of Russian electronic warfare technology goes back to the 1997 MAKS show when a small R&D firm rolled out an electronic jammer which effectively disabled signals sent down by the GPS.
The Americans were so impressed that they purchased several such units. Testing them back home they were unpleasantly surprised to see their high-precision cruise missiles being sent off course by the Russian jammers.
Needless to say that Russian electronic warfare technology has come a long way ever since and can do much better than the simple prototypes which raised so many eyebrows about twenty years ago…
At the start of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq not a single cruise missile was able to hit its target.
Five days and dozens of lost cruise missiles later the Americans accused Russia of redirecting the Tomahawks towards the desert away from their designated targets.
Only after the Americans had located the positions of the Russian jammers and destroyed them in a series of carpet bombing raids, did the Tomahawks manage to regain their smart capabilities…
Electronic jamming may prove equally deadly when used against carrier ships by turning off the incoming planes’ electronic identification systems.
This done, the ship’s computer “labels” such planes as UFOs and activates the accompanying frigates’ air defense systems to shoot them down.
The commanders will take some time to sort things out and before that happens most of the incoming places will have been knocked out effectively depriving the carrier battle group of its intended purpose…
